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Yuliya Voytenko Palgan presented her research done in collaboration with Simo Sulkakoski and Oksana Mont at the 6th International Workshop on the Sharing Economy, which took place on June 28-29 in Utrecht, the Netherlands. She spoke about the Role of City Governments in the Sharing Economy. The abstract of her presentation can he found below. This research is also summarised in a new video series [INSERT A CROSS-LINK TO THE NEWS ENTRY], which will be released each week until the Sharing Cities Summit on 10-11 October in Lund and Malmö.

Urban Sharing Team is on the way home from the project’s first Mobile Research Lab in Amsterdam and while they are reflecting on their impressions from sharing economy in Amsterdam we have a chance to have a look at how their trip has been. Every day between the 8 and 12 of April was packed with interviews, meetings, discussions with Amsterdam city officials, researchers from Utrecht and Twente universities, national organisations lobbying sharing economy, national research institutes, and of course with urban sharing organisations themselves.

In the last decade we have observed an increasing number of people in cities around the world staying in other people’s homes using Airbnb, joining strangers for a ride with BlaBlaBla car, renting city bikes to run errands or do sightseeing, or even borrowing garden tools from a neighbour. Digital technology helps us connect with strangers and borrow their homes, cars, tools, clothes, accessories and toys. It also helps us offer items we do not use often for others to use.

Sharing economy companies have found a way to enter existing markets with historically high entry barriers. Take for example Airbnb, an “accommodation sharing” platform, which has gained more market worth than the world’s fourth largest hotel chain Marriot. While Airbnb was founded only in 2008, Marriot has been around since 1927. Some call the uptake of sharing platforms a “market disruption.” Along with Airbnb, Uber, the taxi-hailing company, is also often mentioned. However, there is more to the sharing economy than Airbnb and Uber, and there is more to the disruption than the talked-about market disruption.